Midweek

13 November 2013

by Yu Shing Ting

When Hawaii Five-O star Alex O’Loughlin moved to Hawaii, he met MMA champion Egan Inoue and quickly discovered a passion for jiujitsu. “BJJ (Brazil jiujitsu) is something I’ve wanted to learn for many years, and I’m glad I started in the hands of Egan,”notes O’Loughlin, who was introduced to Inoue by Scott Caan. “Over the last few years, I’ve had the chance to travel and roll with a number of different black belts, and through those experiences I’ve been able to see how great Egan’s jiujitsu game is.

“But, above and beyond that, what separates him from other teachers and makes him a master is his spiritual connection to the martial arts. Egan has an innate capacity to impart his life philosophies onto his students, as well as the art itself.”

Inoue, who is a black belt third-degree in jiujitsu, five-time MMA world champion and two-time Brazilian jiujitsu world champion, also offers ‘Egan’s Fit Body Bootcamps’ in Manoa, Kailua, downtown Honolulu and Waipio. He also owns Grappling Unlimited and has relocated his Manoa studio to a larger space at 2700 S. King St.

Inoue is extremely proud of the new gym, called Egan’s Training Center, and especially thankful to O’Loughlin, who was responsible for the fundamental design, layout and materials. “I also organized the construction team,” adds O’Loughlin. “In addition to that, over the last six months or so I’ve worked closely with my friend Steve Finch in updating the artwork for Grappling Unlimited, including a commission samurai piece that now hangs on the back wall.”

The new training center also has a hexagon cage and additional mat space, which O’Loughlin lists as his favorite things, along with a unique concrete bench they poured near the reception desk.

“I train as much as I can. If I could train every day, I would, and sometimes I do but usually a few times a week,” notes O’Loughlin, who is now a blue belt in jiujitsu. “The thing I love most about jiujitsu is that it forces me to be in the moment. I can’t think about the past or the future, only right now. The minute I leave the moment I am being put to sleep.”

The public was invited to a grand reopening Nov. 16 with free 20-minute boot-camp mini sessions at 9 a.m., a keiki bootcamp (ages 4 to 12) at 10 a.m., a bootcamp challenge at 11 a.m. and a jiujitsu seminar taught by Inoue at noon.

Also Nov. 17 2013, Inoue and O’Loughlin teamed up for a women’s self-defense seminar at 1 and 3 p.m. Cost is $300, and all proceeds will be donated to Kapiolani hospital. Only 40 spots are available per seminar.

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Note! A new chance to be taught by Alex!

For those of you who don’t know yet, Alex and Egan will be doing another seminar on 3 May 2015(The date have changed from 26 April to 3 May in the past week – so make sure you have the correct date)

With the last seminar in 2013, Miek wrote us a great story of her experience. She will be going again this year, together with Manu. Chatting with Miek, the subject of asking Alex a question, came up. And we thought it would be fun to ask, all of you, to help Miek and Manu. Given the chance, what would you like to ask Alex? Post your questions in the comments section, or our twitter and FB timelines. We will gather them for Miek and Manu, and they will choose the most interesting ones. Hopefully they will get the chance to ask Alex one or two. So help out the girls. They want your questions. :)

If you ever had the chance to meet Alex, what would you really ask him?

Alex: No, no. I don’t even think it looks like me. Have you seen that picture? It’s really weird. I know I nearly crashed my car when I first saw it. And I think, you know what? Cause I wear a lot of my collars up. It’s just the thing that Mick does and on the billboard it’s down. And I think they have actually superimposed my head onto someone else’s shoulders. They’ve done something weird.

Jason: It’s good though. He’s on Sunset. I had him get a picture of himself, like……

Like this:

Alex living like a Lord (Driving boy toy bonus)

by Holly Byrnes

in Herald Sun & Northern Territory News24

19 & 24 January 2011

YOU can tell a lot about a man by the car he drives. Take, for instance, Alex O’Loughlin, Australia’s latest leading-man export and the star of the new Hawaii Five-O. Not so long ago this NIDA graduate, by his own admission, was limping around Los Angeles in a “piece of shit car“, hocking his stereo and working for $15 an hour to pay his rent.

Cut to Waikiki’s hottest hotel The Edition, where O’Loughlin is sitting pretty (thank you, work gods) flashing a set of perfectly veneered teeth you’d expect from Central Casting Dentistry. “I’m driving a pretty nice car now and they pay me well,” he smiles, with just the right amount of Aussie humility. “Life’s great and perseverance pays off.”

For this petrol head the wheels parked in his Honolulu driveway these days aren’t nearly as important as the journey he’s taken to get here (for the record, he’s driving a ’97 Land Rover Defender).

Three years ago, when he was lifting bricks in lieu of picking up acting work, his ride was more a health hazard than a boy’s toy. “It was either a Jeep Cherokee, that exploded on me, or maybe a Gio Prism, the American equivalent of a Mitsubishi Colt. I think that exploded on me, too. To be honest, I’m surprised I’m still here: the vehicles I’ve had should have killed me by now,” he says.

Now, driving the reboot of one of the most iconic US TV shows of all time, O’Loughlin is still taking his chances. The 34-year-old has already had two US television series, Three Rivers and Moonlight, fail in their first year. He admits he was bracing himself to strike out on the small screen, three times unlucky.

Despite the early success of the new Five-O (pulling a solid US audience of 14.2 million-plus on debut in May), you get the feeling O’Loughlin is not going to leave them wondering this time around. “If those cars didn’t kill me, this show will,” he says, only half-joking.

That’s the first thing you’ll notice about O’Loughlin’sSteve McGarrett versus the debonair original, Jack Lord: he gets physical. And how. Throwing himself into the role, with the action amped up to the crash-bang standards of TV viewers today, this is McGarrett, full-throttle. And as female fans have come to appreciate, he certainly has the body for the job.

Although he recently showed off his sensitive side on the big screen, opposite Jennifer Lopez in rom-com The Back-up Plan, it was O’Loughlin’s potential as an action hero that attracted the show’s executive producer Peter Lenkov. “I’d met Alex a couple of years ago on another project and felt that he could be a leading man in the action genre but had never been tapped for that world,”Lenkov says. “I needed someone who didn’t bring a lot of baggage from other roles, someone who wasn’t identifiable to another franchise, either TV or film, so he could go in and really make McGarrett his own.”

With no less than the state of Hawaii and Lenkov’s father, a diehard fan of the original, to impress, O’Loughlin was determined not to let expectation weigh him down. “I’ve always had the attitude that if it all goes to s—, I can just go home and do something else. You can’t think too much about that stuff (expectation). You just have to go for it, do your best and hope it’s not terrible,” he says.

It’s anything but terrible, with the chemistry between O’Loughlin and his on-screen offsider, Danny “Danno” Williams, played by the charmingly unfiltered Scott Caan, powering the show. The Entourage regular (and son of film star James Caan) may have pulled most of the plaudits and a Golden Globe nomination for his role as the neurotic jester to O’Loughlin’s stitched-up lieutenant commander, but Caan Jr gives his Aussie partner his props. “Alex has a really tough job on this show, what he’s doing is really difficult and I don’t think people give him enough credit,” he says.

“They’ve given me levels, the tough guy who has a sensitive side. But McGarrett’s supposed to be straight down the middle and that’s really hard for an actor.”

On set, the battle of the blokes has gone O’Loughlin’s way, with Caan leading the injury tally. “Scotty’s been to the hospital a couple of times, the poor bugger,” the Canberra-born star says. “He tore his ACL (knee), had to go to LA for surgery on that, then he went to hospital because we did a big shoot out and he got a piece of metal in his eye. I’ve been OK so far, I’ve just used Scott as a shield.”

It was while doing one of his own stunts, flogging a high-powered dirtbike through the mountains of Oahu, that O’Loughlin stopped a second to pinch himself. “I’m up there, no helmet and just told to go for it,” he says.

“I was riding this thing into the side of the mountain, raining sweat and giving it some. And halfway through it, I thought to ask, ‘If I die, will insurance cover this?’ “

His mum and those studio safety heads should relax: this Aussie bloke-made-good has a firm handle on things.

AUSSIE ALEX MAKES THE ROLE HIS OWN

THE “blue steel’ gaze is the same, but comparisons between Alex O’Loughlin’s Steve McGarrett and original actor Jack Lord should end there. While Lord, in all his 1970s polyester glory, put the character (even the state of Hawaii) on the map, it’s a sexy Aussie who drags this iconic series into the 21st century.

“This is not Jack Lord’s Hawaii Five-O, it’s mine,”O’Loughlin says. “First of all, Jack Lord was a man without a past, but from the pilot you’ll learn so much more about my character.” A Navy SEAL who returns to Oahu to avenge his cop father’s murder, McGarrett is in control, pulling together his crack squad of divorced dad Danno (Caan), exiled cop Chin Ho Kelly (Lost’s Daniel Dae Kim) and rookie detective Kono Kalakaua (Grace Park).

For traditionalists, the wave-riding theme song is back, as is McGarrett’s arresting slug, “book ‘em, Danno”. While the line riles Caan, who begged producers to can it, executive producer Peter Lenkov insisted the “touchstone” stay.

Like this:

Put away your garlic and wooden stakes. Thanks to a new twist on the vampire legend, Moonlight’s Alex O’Loughlin is emerging from the shadows as a TV heartthrob

O’Loughlin’ gravel-over-velvet voice and dark, rock-star charisma have them swooning. To fans he’s the hottest bloodsucker since Brad Pitt hung up the fake fangs back in 1994

by Lynn Morgan

CBS Watch!

April 2008

“I’ve always been interested in storytelling,”Alex O’Loughlin says. “Even as a kid, I’ve always been the guy spinning a yarn around the campfire.” The campfire is now TV, and the 32-year-old Australian-born star of Moonlight is mesmerizing an audience of millions with his portrayal of Mick St John, a private detective with a unique affinity for the dark side: He’s a 90 years old vampire. And playing this broodingly sexy St. John has anointed O’Loughlin TV’s newest dark heartthrob.

“I’ve always love the genre,” says O’Loughlin.“I’m a big fan of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. The travels of Lestat are my favourites. I’ve always wanted to play a vampire. It’s like playing a character with several personalities.”

As a fan of scary movies and dark literature, O’Loughlin feels right at home in this haunted and shadowy role. “It’s an opportunity to play with bigger ideas,” he says. “Infinity, immortality, the dichotomy within the character.”

Taking a Stake to Convention

O’Loughlin is surprised and mildly taken aback by the fervor with which fans have embraced the show, a modern Gothic tale that combines elements of action, film noir and romance, and their passionate dedication to all things vampiric. Moonlight updates the legends of the undead, toying with the established and cherished mythology. Moonlight offers a 21st century version of the ancient dark archetype : no capes, no coffins, no wild-eyed, obsessive Van Helsings brandishing crucifixes. Most shocking of all to many dedicated vamp fans is Mick’s ability to survive sunlight.

Some of their chat room comments have filtered down to O’Loughlin, and he greets their theories with good humor. “Daylight weakens Mick,” he explains patiently. “He can go out into the sunlight, briefly, if he keeps to the shadows. The sun weakens him, and lengthy exposure to the light will kill him. We explored those things in the fourth episode when Beth [Sophia Myles] finds out the truth about Mick.”

Reinterpreting this evocative symbol keeps vampires relevant and eternally fascinating. Novelists Laurell K. Hamilton, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and, most recently Elizabeth Kostova have all put their unique spins on the conventions established by Bram Stoker and set in stone by Bela Lugosi. Moonlight creators Ron Koslow and Trevor Munson and executive producer Joel Silver are just taking their turn reimagining a world of the undead, and O’Loughlin is excited to be a part of it.

Shadow of Doubt

Moonlight is a breakthrough role for O’Loughlin, who arrived in Hollywood just three years ago from Australia. He worked in television playing guest roles – including an acclaimed performance on The Shield – and was narrowly beaten out for another iconic role by Daniel Craig, who was cast instead of O’Loughlin as the new James Bond.

Moonlight has brought him a new level of visibility for which he was not entirely prepared, but which he confronts squarely with a level head and a sense of humor.

“Fame is kind of frightening. I don’t yearn for it,”O’Loughlin says. “All of a sudden, you are driving home one night, and there’s your head, 30 feet tall, on a billboard on Sunset Boulevard. I was an actor in theater in Sydney, and I’ve done little indie films that paid nothing. I am not an actor for that kind of recognition. I like playing parts that I can disappear in. I enjoy hiding behind my characters.”

O’Loughlin is refreshingly irreverent about his new status as a heartthrob as well. Despite those ubiquitous billboards, he is convinced he is safely hidden behind Mick St John. “It doesn’t look like me!” he laughs. “It doesn’t even look like Mick! Between the wind machine blowing my hair around and the retouching, it looks nothing like me.”

Fans of Moonlight obviously disagree. O’Loughlin’s gravel-over-velvet voice and dark, rock-star charisma have them swooning. To them, he is the hottest bloodsucker since Brad Pitt hung up the fake fangs back in 1994.

Blood, Sweat and Tears

“I don’t see myself that way at all!” the self-effacing actor scoffs, explaining that he’s much more interested in exploring the depths of his character than in polishing the cosmetic surface. Moonlight’s Mick St John is a tangle of contradictions, ambivalent about his vampiric state and ill at ease with his possible immortality, in high contrast with his amoral sidekick, Jozef Konstan (Jason Dohring), a billionaire vampire who is a blithe bloodsucker, comically unconflicted about his predator status – the insouciant Lestat to Mick’s tormented Louis.

“Mick is the loneliest man in the world,”O’Loughlin says. “Even though he’s surrounded by people, he’s isolated and cut off from his own humanity. Mentally, he’s one of the most damaged characters I have ever played. He’s not in a lot of physical jeopardy, but emotionally, he’s a wreck. I try to reach inside of him and find the humanity at his heart.”

O’Loughlin leaves the grim and angsty stuff on screen, though. Personally, he’s cheeky and charming with a raucous laugh and a sexy, Down Under accent. He would rather ride motorcycles than brood, and his hobbies are more rugged than moody : running, rock climbing, and sailing “badly.” He does as many of his own stunts on the show “as the insurance company will let me,” he says. And to stay in shape for the grueling work, he spends his downtime on set in his trailer doing a punishing Navy SEAL workout to keep up with the physical demands of the role. After all, nobody would be scared of a flabby vampire.

Sound Bites

Recently, movie audiences got to see a different side of the actor as he played the brother of Jonathan Rhys Meyers’ character in the movie August Rush, a holiday fable about the healing power of music. O’Loughlin got to showcase a few of his other talents in the film – singing and playing the guitar (in real life, O’Loughlin plays both acoustic and electric guitar).

When asked about his favorite musician, it takes the actor a moment or two to sort through the many possibilities before settling on one : “Hendrix. Definitely Jimi Hendrix. I don’t play anything like him, but he’s my favorite. He was the best.”

Moonlight has a subtle musical subtext that will move to the forefront in upcoming episodes, when audiences will get to hear O’Loughlin play on the show as part of Mick’s character development.

The actor remains intrigued by the character’s possibilities and the potential for telling more stories about Mick St John. It’s his purpose in being a performer. “I want to do work that’s meaningful to me and touches people,” he insists. “I don’t care about being a heartthrob or any of that crap. I care about having somebody come up to me on the street and say, ‘That meant a lot to me.'”

He has had that moment in his own life. “When I met Robert De Niro in New York, I got to sit and talk with him for a few minutes,”O’Loughlin recalls. “It was amazing. He taught me a lot as a young man, through his work, and the characters he played. He helped me get through adolescence and along the road growing up.”

One of the things he has come to understand along that road is the significance of stories, and of telling them. “I’ve always appreciated art and music, different forms of expression,”O’Loughlin says. “As an adult, I appreciate the opportunity to tell important stories.”

Jim captured Alex as he showed off his fitness regime in the hills in Malibu. Alex demonstrated how he incorporates the outdoors in his workouts, by running in the hills with large rocks and doing pull-ups on tree branches. A small studio had to be built on the side of a hill to capture the actor working out. Apparently Jim said that Alex was laid back and a real trooper.

Alex: Yeah, I just think … I mean it’s so much more me, being out here in the elements as opposed to being in a gym. I mean I go to a gym, some time, when I have to, you know. I don’t hate it, but it’s ….. I much more prefer this. I much more prefer to go out on a mountain or the ocean or whatever. And the thing is, you know, when you’re in a gym, it’s all there for you and it’s easy.

But out here, I mean, it’s not all set up for you to work out, but it is all set up for a workout. You know as long as you use mind and your creativity and think about gravity and physics. And that’s the thing I love about this kind of working out. You know, people, really inspirational people train outdoors, and..

Question: How is your role in Hawaii Five-0 affected your fitness regiment?

Alex: It’s tricky man. It’s really tricky. My role in Hawaii Five-0 has, has been…. has made it difficult to maintain my day-to-day kind of sanity [laughs]. Day to day fitness, but day-to-day kind of mental fitness as well. I mean, you do so many hours, I do enough stunts to … to say I do some stunts. I do to some stunts, a lot of action stuff.

I also have a lot of blah, blah. It’s just hard to find time, it’s also hard to find the energy, you know, when you’re doing 15 – 16 hours a day. It’s hard to find pockets where you can actually drop and do a 100 push-up or just do a little workout. And I’m learning the next day’s work, while I’m at work shooting that day’s work. It kind of just perpetuates itself.

Question: So what do you do to compensate?

Alex: I …. You just got to make time.

Question: What’s the best tip that you can share about diet?

Alex: I don’t know, there’s a few. It’s…. I think the sort of overall dietary advice I give people is, drink a lot of water. Like two gallons a day if you can. Try to eliminate as much salt out of you diet as possible. And try to eat a small balanced portions of a really clean low glycemic index carbohydrate, like brow rice or wholemeal pasta. Steamed vegetables and a protein. And don’t cook any of it with oil. And just use cold pressed oils on the top.

Question: What do you and Steve McGarrett have in common?

Alex: Not much. [Laughs] He’s a much better version of a man.

Alex: One of the many things …. many things that I like to do is surf actually. I’ve only been surfing for about six or seven months. It changed my life. It’s changed my life, I love it.

Question: So how often are you out there?

Alex: Every day if I can. Yeah, it’s very very difficult sport to learn. I’m usually pretty good with sport ….. this one, this is tricky. They say it’s …. they say it’s like the sport that takes longest to learn, and is the hardest to learn above sort of 13 years of age. So, yeah, I’ve got my work cut out for me. But I’m doing okay. Progressing slowly.

Alex: My favourite cheat food is sugar, man.

Alex: My favourite thing to do in Hawaii …. There’s so much great stuff to do, you know. Besides surfing, is … is … I love the North Shore. I love going up …. I live on the South, at Diamond head, so. I love travelling up the North Shore, getting some …… getting some plate lunch or shrimp up there. And some shave ice. Getting out in the water. It’s amazing up there. It’s like country. I’ve got some great friends up there, so ….